


we've kissed before, kind of a lot

by candypolaroide



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, New York City, teenagers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 14:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17326724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candypolaroide/pseuds/candypolaroide
Summary: He’s kind of out of breath right now (but when isn’t he, when it comes to her?) so he feels slightly stupid for laying so much out of his heart into this empty classroom on a Wednesday afternoon.Lucas would very much like to stand up and laugh, take it all back, except—she’s looking at him kind of different now, so he knows that she’s been listening. She’s Maya Hart, and she doesn’t listen (but maybe she might, if only for him).





	we've kissed before, kind of a lot

**Author's Note:**

> their first kiss is heavily inspired by [this](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11435805/1/The-Long-Game) really amazing fanfic (and also that fabulous stydia [kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmKrQCrImK4&t=75s))
> 
> also, Lucas Friar is a nationally ranked hockey player in this one bc he's a spinoff of my child Connor McDavid. for anyone who's wondering, the Erie Otters are now NYC's highly ranked youth hockey team (which they don't have in real life - but they do in my fic, so.)

**1.**

Maya’s first kiss happens on the third Wednesday of October (a Wednesday so stressful, she remembers the exact date even without the kiss).

It’s barely been a month since high school started and she’s only just begun her freshman year, but already it seems like everything’s moving too fast. Realistically, she knows that she’s only just turned fourteen and she’s probably being a little bit melodramatic. She can’t help but freak out though; high school is _terrifying._ There’s just so… _much—_ so many new rules to follow, teachers to please, kids to watch out for.

Maya Hart is nothing if not brave, but maybe even _she_ might not be brave enough for this.

Everything comes to a boiling point on the third Wednesday of October. She knows this because it’s the exact date of her very first math test. It’s also the exact date of her very first  _failed_ math test. 

The bell rings and everyone trickles out of the class, talking about how _easy_ it all was and how _proud_ their parents are going to be.

Well.

Maya Hart didn’t find that test easy at all, _and_ she only has one parent.

She sneaks back into the classroom after the last bell’s rung, just because she’s always been a bit of a sucker for self-punishment. Crumpling onto the floor of that dusty math classroom, she feels the wood of the teacher’s desk behind her back and lets out a long sigh.

And then she sobs her heart out, of course _—_

(because what’s the point of running back to a place you hate, if you don’t cry in it?)

Pounding footsteps alert her to someone outside the door, and when she looks up it’s Lucas. Of course it is. Damn him.

He takes one look at her flushed face, her watery eyes, and something inside his heart twists. Even now, even with wild hair and charcoal tracks smudging lines down her cheeks, she’s radiant. Breathtaking.

Lucas takes a deep breath and sits down beside her, careful not to look too long because he knows that Maya hates crying. If he stares too hard, she’ll run, so he tries talking instead.

He begins by saying,  _I'm sorry you're stressed but please don't freak out_ _; everything is going to be fine._

She doesn’t look at him when he starts to speak, but he knows she’s listening by the way her fingers stops digging into her palms, so he doesn’t stop.

Lucas comforts her then, reassuring her that the transition into high school is going to be difficult, but they all have each other—

(and that she has herself, too, more than anything.)

He reminds her that she’s _Maya_ freaking _Hart;_ leader of the Homework Rebellion, Dancer of Tabletops, Bane of Mr. Matthews’ existence. She can pull through this, if only she believes in herself now, like how she always did.

(he almost tells her that she is mischievously beautiful in the same way that a fallen angel is devious; a heartbreaker with a grin gone rogue. he almost tells her that he maybe might be just a little bit in love with her; he almost tells her that he’s been gone for her since the day they met.)

But Lucas Friar is a smart boy and he knows that this moment is not about him. So, he takes a deep breath and tells her all he knows about her: that _yeah_ , her dad sucks and maybe her math _could_ use a little help, and _okay, fine,_ her apartment _does_ have a slightly leaky roof, but—

— _but,_ he also forces her to remember that she has him, and Riley, and Farkle, and Mr. Matthews, too. 

He tells her that high school is going to be hard, and college might be harder, and adulting is probably going to be the worst yet—but they have each other. She has him and he has her and that’s all that really matters in this school; that’s all that really matters in the whole city of New York, probably.

He’s kind of out of breath right now (but when isn’t he, when it comes to her?) so he feels slightly stupid for laying so much out of his heart into this empty classroom on a Wednesday afternoon.

Lucas would very much like to stand up and laugh, to take it all back, except—she’s looking at him kind of different now, so he knows that she’s been listening. She’s Maya Hart, and she doesn’t listen (but maybe she might, if only for him).

The way her chest is heaving ever so slightly, combined with the flickering motion her eyelashes are currently doing (does she even realize she’s doing it?) give Lucas the courage to scoot imperceptibly closer.

She touches her lips to his for just one second that day, brief; brilliant. They are both sitting on the wooden floor of their dusty math classroom. Golden light is slanting softly through the blinds.

They won’t admit it, but it’s both of their first kisses, _ever_.

It’s also their first kiss with each other ( _this_ , they won’t even admit for years).

It’s probably not a bad kiss, he muses, even as his fingers gently weave through her hair. He doesn’t really know what kissing is supposed to feel like yet, but at the moment he thinks this might be good. His breath hitches and his heart aches; something in his stupid stomach gets fluttery, _again_.

It’s not a bad kiss at all.

 

 ★

 

**2.**

He’s running down an alleyway, with reporters calling his name.

It feels like the whole city of New York knows who he is by now—or, at least, the part of New York that keeps up with high school hockey. There's not many, but the ones that do are always those diehard hockey fans who read about him in collegiate sports journals. Small articles, mostly, as he's only playing sophomore hockey, but slowly the features are getting longer. They mostly run under a page, though, with titles about how Lucas Friar  _could be_  “The Next Saving Prospect” for a dying sport (or something cheesy like that).

Realistically, Lucas knows he’s pretty good at hockey. But he also knows that reporters like to spin a story, and his life on paper seems too perfect not to print (like one of those fairytale transplant successes that circulates small-town gossip).

 _(Southern) Boy Meets World_ , the recruiting magazines read. It’s awful and slightly demeaning as hell, but Lucas knows that the target demographic—college scouts and Canadian rednecks—eat "underdog" shit like that up. He doesn’t take it too personal; most high school recruiting agencies try to generate interest by creating stories that follow young talent.

Whatever it is, Lucas knows that hockey scholarships are probably his only shot at a real university; and that he needs to keep his name clean to stay on the team. It’s generally been pretty easy so far, but tonight—

 _Tonight_ , the world might actually find out if _Lucas Friar_ really is going to be stupid enough to get caught sneaking into a club when he is obviously underage—and decidedly able to get disqualified from the USNDP. Tonight, the world _can’t_ find that out.

All of this is why Lucas is ducking down a _supremely_ sketchy East Village alleyway at the moment, dark and alone and running as fast as he can (which is pretty fast, considering that he’s a professional athlete and all). There’s only maybe two “reporters” behind him, if he can call even them that—they’re barely college kids studying journalism undergrads. But tonight, in this moment, they feel as threatening as if he was being chased by actual paparazzi.

It’s maybe not fast enough; he can hear the echoes of footsteps bouncing back at him against the narrow brick walls and suddenly he hits a residential end. _Fuck._

Tonight's the night he’s going to get caught, and within days he might be sent back to Texas for trying to sneak into a club underage ( _why_ he’d ever do a stupid thing like that, he can’t even _begin_ to explain).

Without hockey, he's without college. And without college, Lucas is probably going to end up like his deadbeat dad; working factory jobs until retirement and attending Trump rallies in his free time. Honestly, _death_ would probably be a better fate than that.

These thoughts are frantically swarming through his head when out of the shadows, a manicured hand reaches up and grabs him. All he can see is a glimpse of gleaming blonde hair shining platinum under the moonlight, but everything inside him relaxes.

Of course it’s _her._  Of course his only instinct would be to lead him here without him even realising; of course he would end up behind Gammy Hart’s East Village brownstone at the first sign of trouble.

He doesn’t even wonder why she’s loitering back here, because Maya Hart is definitely reckless enough to hang out in midnight alleyways alone. _Of course_ she would be the one to save him, when just when his heart’s pounding a bit too crazy.

He hears the reporters nearing and he knows that she does too. Just as he’s about to panic, she grabs his hand and looks up at him with those eyes he’s always been a little bit stupid for.

“Trust me?” she asks.

He does.

She pulls him in by his collar and kisses him until his knees buckle—which, like, _wow_. She’s _really_  good at kissing. He wonders briefly where she learned it from (and how he could have possibly been so stupid to miss it), until her tongue does a _thing_ and then he’s not wondering anything at all anymore.

Dimly, he recognizes that the reporters have gone away; they probably just look like any other hormonal teenage couple making out past curfew in New York City. That doesn’t stop him from leaning in for another kiss, though.

Afterwards, he looks down at her and says, “You know my name’s Lucas Friar?”

It’s more of a question than a statement, although it could easily be the other way around. What he wants to say is, _Do y_ _ou know my name is Lucas Friar—and that means I have to be perfect all the time, and that I really can't afford to mess anything up, so shouldn't I probably stop kissing you in the alleyway right now?_

But none of that comes out, so he just stands there dumbstruck when he hears her reply.

“Well, _Huckleberry_ ,” Maya drawls out in the sardonic way of hers, just because she can. “If your name is Lucas Friar, then my name is Maya Hart. And no offense to what you do, because I’m _sure_ it’s _great_ —”

(and now she sounds a little cloying)

“—but your name’s just a name, just like any other name. ‘ _Lucas Friar_ ’ doesn’t exactly scream headlines to me. If I were going to write an article about someone, I would at least pick a guy like… _fuck_ , I don’t know. Maybe someone with a _really_ awesome name, like _Farkle Minkus_.” Here, she flourishes Farkle's name off her tongue like it’s something to be savoured and Lucas can’t help but laugh.

Her voice turns serious again. “Yeah, now _that’s_ a beautiful name. But _Lucas Friar_? To me, that only sounds like the name of a boy who’s just…looking for some real people, having a good time.”

 

★

 

**3.**

There’s an away game in some tiny upstate town called Erie in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. It’s a pretty cute place, he supposes.

The town’s nice and his team’s almost winning (so far) and everything else is going to plan—especially since his friends followed him all the way from New York City (because it's the _playoffs,_ baby).

The final game—the only one that counts—is almost ending and the Otters are tied with Sudbury. He wants to win, he needs to win; he’s playing with three minutes left on the overtime clock and the ice is flashing by him.

All of a sudden (because hockey is a game that moves in _flashes_ and _suddens)_ , he’s got the puck. He’s got the puck and he hears New York City take a collective breath; sees a flash of Otter crimson in the lower left of the stands and—oh.

He’s just won the national championships.

_Oh._

There’s a single stunned silence that falls over the crowd at the exact moment he tips the puck into the bottom left corner of the net. He’s wondering idly at his form, at his name, at whether or not Brinsky’s behind him with the line change as he always is—when the puck goes in and his heart stops moving, just as the world does.

A hush sweeps the arena: _did he do it?_ Did they win? Is this real, this is happening, is this _him?_

And then—

And then he hears a long, low, Indian whoop that cuts through the dense quiet. He knows without even turning his head that it’s Maya, perched on Farkle’s shoulders, already celebrating.

He falls in love with her a little bit just then, because _of course_ she’s the one that catches on first. She is Maya Hart with a spitfire brain that always reacts a split second before everyone else; who’s realized, two steps ahead of the entire crowd, that _they just won the FUCKING CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!_

The entire stadium erupts into deafening cheers that echoes through all of Erie; no, through all of the holy hell state of New York, even.

He’s running and screaming and crushing his lineys with a hug because HOLY SHIT, they really did it.

And when the Otters pour off the ice, he catches Maya Hart in his arms because it’s his only instinct to reach out for her. It’s also his only instinct to kiss her.

One moment she’s a tiny golden blur—the next, his lips are on hers for the third (fourth? fifth?) time. The peck is sweet and short, encumbered by sweaty hands and layers of hockey gear. He is swept away by the crowd before his brain can fully process _what the fuck_ he’s just done.

When he looks back, he thinks he can see Maya’s small outline still frozen on the bleachers. She has one tiny hand pressed to her lips, and his lucky 97 still painted on her cheek.

 

★

 

**4.**

He gets drunk for the first time with her, because she is the only person he trusts to do it with.

She sneaks in through his bedroom window, because Maya is actually so paranoid that she refuses to use his front door. She's kind of adorable. Lucas spends an _hour_ Swiffering his house in preparation. _He's_  kind of pathetic.

The first thing Lucas sees when he pulls open the rain-soaked gutter is a flash of black leather; Maya crawls in through the fire escape and lounges back onto his bed like she owns the place. Ignoring his blush, Maya reaches into her bra and pulls out a boot of tequila along with a grin that would terrify the devil.

“Shots?” she asks, with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Black out or back out, baby.”

Lucas tries desperately to convince her that _a light buzz would work just fine_ , that they should try drinking a few beers and call it a night.

But because she smiles—

(because she’s got Lucas wrapped around her babiest finger and she knows it)

—he gives in.

They alternate shots for secrets, pounding back bitter tequila to a mixtape of blaring 90’s rap until Lucas can’t tell the difference between the bass drops and his own heartbeats.

When The Shins come on, Maya screams, “I fucking love this song!!!” and Lucas pretends to know the lyrics, too. There’s a violet gauze that alcohol layers over his vision; Lucas thinks Maya Hart in this current moment is the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen.

She kisses him that night, just once when they were drunk. They're panting and pushing and grinding until they both fall apart together, still mostly clothed with stars in their eyes.

He wakes up the next morning to a warm body snuggled under his arms and he thinks something along the lines of: 

 _Oh. Finally_.

But then Maya’s awake and her eyes are wild, like a cagey animal that’s not meant to be captured. She takes one look at him, and then at herself—and then at herself in his bed—before she’s pulling on a T-shirt and stumbling blindly out of the house.

He slumps back against his pillows and swears.

She doesn’t pick up his calls for three days.

 

★ 

 

**5.**

So. The standoff finally occurs.

They’re back at the high school, back where it all started. Full circle and all that shit, he supposes.

Actually, he’s not quite sure where they started. Maybe they started in seventh grade on that subway car, when she sauntered up to his newbie Texas act and charmed him with her classic gypsy speak until his ears turned red. Or maybe it started when they were runaways sprinting through the halls of detention with rebellious streaks painted across cheekbones; when she pulled him in by his collar for the first time but ducked away before he could kiss her. Maybe it all started in Texas, right beside a campfire—under the protection of a million stars in the sky.

Maybe it all started on the ice when she came to her first game with his jersey on, leaving him so flustered that he rammed right into the glass (she gave him shit about that for a week). Maybe it all started outside the neon signs of the bowling arcade where she accidentally-on-purpose flashed him for the first time, fueling his sweat-soaked dreams for a month. Maybe it all started in the midnight alleyways of New York, when she kissed him against the bricks until he learned how to kiss her back or _—_

 _—_ or maybe it all started after the championships, or maybe it all started at his Friday night hockey games, or maybe it all started at 4AM in his basement after _two, three, four_ shots too many.

Lucas honestly couldn’t care less about when it started anymore; he’s just known that it hasn't stopped since the day it begun. He’s so gone for this girl.

But she’s not his girl, because she's Maya Hart; fearless about nearly everything except for him. She’s always been a little bit soft around him (just like how he’s always been a little bit stupid for her), but the thought of letting someone else in her life terrifies her more than any reckless decision she’s ever made.

So, this is what Maya Hart did (or rather, what she can't stop herself from doing):

She dances, twirls, and flies out of reach for over six years, kind-of-maybe-on-purpose because there’s nothing she hates more than being disappointed. It’s already a little too late though, because her heart’s already been broken by him—so maybe that’s why she lets him chase her out into the parking lot three days after they’d kissed for the last time.

She turns around to face him with tears streaming down her cheeks (just that day in the dusty math classroom, all those years ago).

The snow’s blowing around them and she can hear carolers somewhere in the distance, but she really just doesn’t care anymore. She looks at him then, seeing a beautiful seventeen-year old boy and wondering when, exactly, they all grew up so fast.

He is standing there with his heart on his sleeve, full of love and light and everything she’s never had. She really thinks that this boy might be the end of her.

Maya’s crying and Lucas is shaking and everything becomes so, so bright the way only real things do. He goes up to her slowly (because she is a wild thing that might take flight if provoked), and gently cradles her face with his thumb.

They kiss in the parking lot that day, amongst the big red trucks and cracked cement of their ugly high school building.

It feels like the start of an era, it feels like the end of a war. Mostly, it just feels like coming home.

It’s funny, though, because there’s this one moment of clarity when Maya’s eyes flutter open after their lips touch and she sees Lucas as if they're meeting again for the very first time.

She thinks, _It’s you. Of course it is. There you are._

And there he is.

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe i wrote so much for such a dead fandom. on the other hand, i kind of feel dead too, so leaving a kudos would really help


End file.
